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The Willow Creek Wind Farm has been given a reprieve from needing to address noise violations, as the Morrow County Court (the local name for county commission) decided not to enforce the state noise law. Oregon has some of the most stringent noise standards, 10dB over night time ambient, which amounts to a noise limit […]

A recent article in the New York Times focuses on the financial benefits coming into communities in eastern Oregon, where wind energy development is booming despite state noise limits of 36dB at homes. Most wind farms in the US and Canada face noise limits in the 45-50dB range, with some regs going as low as 40dB […]

A few months back, there was a bit of a news and comment flurry when the Shepherd’s Flat wind farm announced plans to pay neighbors $5000 for noise wavers, in order to build turbines closer to homes than Oregon’s unusually strict 36dB noise limit would allow. While the plan was dissed by many as an […]

The Morrow County Planning Board ruled this week that the Willow Creek Energy Center, an 80-turbine wind farm, is producing noise levels that violate Oregon’s noise limits, and gave Invenergy, the wind farm’s owner, six months to get the turbines into compliance. The wind farm began operating in January 2009, and by March, several neighbors within […]

Two different acoustic studies near the Willow Creek Energy Center in eastern Oregon have found that the state’s wind farm noise ordinance is being violated at several homes nearby. How often and by how much the violations are occurring remains under contention. As reported by the East Oregonian, the commission heard from several acousticians as […]

Increasingly, local regulators are settling on a half-mile setback for wind turbines, despite many reports of noise issues beyond that distance. At the Willow Creek Wind Farm in Morrow County, Oregon, local residents raised concerns in November when the developer’s noise models indicated that the farm would not meet the relatively stringent 36dB noise limit. […]